Rule Two
by Higuchimon
Summary: [one-shot, 12 stories LJ challenge, Jounouchi x Seto/Seto x Jounouchi, Puppyshipping] Jounouchi heads home to get his possessions so he can move in with Kaiba. What's his dad going to do when he finds this out?


**Disclaimer:** I do not own any of the characters or situations involved in this fanfic, and am not making any profit whatsoever off of it.  
**Story Title:** Rule Two  
**Characters:** Jounouchi Katsuya, Kaiba Seto, Jounouchi Hiroshi  
**Romance:** Jounouchi x Kaiba  
**Story Word Count:** 2,138  
**LJ Challenge:** This was written for the 12_stories challenge, using the prompt 'rules'.  
**Timeline:** About five or six years after the Ceremonial Duel.  
**Notes:** A note at the bottom. Wouldn't want you to be spoiled.  
**Summary:** Jounouchi heads home to get his possessions so he can move in with Kaiba. What's his dad going to do when he finds this out?

* * *

Jounouchi stood at the door for a moment, trying to decide if he could hear his dad moving around inside or not. Not that it didn't mean he was there if he didn't. The old man could just as easily be asleep or knocked out from one too many beers in front of the television. Jounouchi Hiroshi wasn't always noisy when it came to being drunk. Not even most of the time.

Though, to be honest, he'd been a bit better on it as the years had went by. Seeing his son actually succeeding had helped him, a little. Of course, he still got drunk, but he at least sobered up enough to get odd jobs when and where he could, to keep up the rent on this place.

_Hope he doesn't stop that once I'm gone._ Moving out was a big step, but Jounouchi was certain he was ready for it. At least Kaiba had promised to keep some decent beer in his personal fridge, and to keep the maids out of his little set of rooms.

He refused to think of it as a suite. Even though it was, with a large bedroom all its own, a mini-kitchen, and a full bathroom, and more closets than this entire apartment had.

Well, if his dad was there, then he was at least being quiet, which meant he could probably get his stuff and get out. He had the note written already. This was probably the best way to do it, even if it did kind of feel wrong to just try to sneak off like he was running away.

He tried the door, then fumbled in his pockets until he found the key and carefully unlocked it. That still gave him no clues on if his dad were there or not. He opened it just as carefully and stuck his head inside, making sure to keep low. If his dad was in one of those moods where he wanted to throw bottles at him, he didn't really feel like being hit. He'd hate to have to try to explain that no, his dad didn't abuse him, he just liked to throw things. He'd actually come close to being on the Japanese Olympic discus team when he'd been in college, or so he'd always told his kids.

But nothing came flying towards him, and the blond moved more carefully into the room, listening. He thought he could hear the familiar snores, coming from the bedroom. That was good. He could do this and be done with it.

There wasn't a whole lot to be packed. He was still kind of iffy about this, but he really just needed his clothes, some books and a few keepsakes, and his deck and duel disk. All of it would fit into two bags.

Those two bags were in his little closet, and he rummaged them out quickly. Still, nothing that came from his dad's room. Better and better. He must have been really sleeping it off.

He didn't bother packing neatly. He never did. What was the point? Instead, he just shoved everything into his bags, zipping one when it was full of clothes. That was about all of them. He'd demanded, as a price of moving in, that Kaiba wouldn't try to buy him clothes he wasn't comfortable with. One of the many compromises they had worked out was that Jounouchi, if he ever _had_ to show up somewhere with Kaiba, would pick out something decent, but he paid for all of his clothes with his own paycheck. That was part of the rules of dating Kaiba: compromise in everything.

And he did not work for KaibaCorp. Not that it wouldn't have been a good job, but it just wouldn't have felt right. No, he worked for Otogi, helping the green-eyed gamesman work on new games and such.

"Katsuya." Huh? How in the hell had his dad gotten up and gotten to his door without him knowing about it? He looked up, tensing just a bit. He wasn't going to let his dad change his mind. It had nothing to do with Kaiba's ego. He just wanted out of this place.

"Hey, Pop," he said, straightening up some. No beer bottle in hand. He must not have been by the kitchen yet. Jounouchi wasn't all that sure of what he wanted to say after that. How did you say that you were moving out to go live with a multi-billionaire that you were having sex with on a fairly regular basis, but no, you weren't being a kept boy or anything like that?

"Going somewhere?" Brown eyes nearly the same shade of his own peered at him, and he shifted a bit. He didn't think he'd have to jump out the window or anything. It all depended on what kind of a mood his dad was in at the moment. So far, so good.

"Yeah. Moving out." Jounouchi picked up a few packs of cards he hadn't bothered to open up yet and tossed them into the still open bag. He wasn't even sure if he could promise to come by and see him. He _wanted_ to; he didn't want to forget his old man existed. But work had kept him busy enough when he _lived_ here, and when his dad wasn't asleep, he was either mostly drunk or out working himself.

"Got your own place, huh?" Jounouchi Hiroshi sneered the words out a bit. He was actually sober, his son realized. That wasn't rare, but it still didn't happen as often as he would have liked it to.

The younger blond put another couple of keepsakes in the bag. That was just about everything. He couldn't see the street from where they were; his window looked in the wrong direction, but he knew that Kaiba and Kaiba's limo was going to be out there anyway. The brunet hadn't exactly told him to _hurry_, but the implications had been he didn't want to stick around here all that much longer than he had to. Jounouchi could relate. Kaiba could probably handle most of the punks around, but if there was going to be a fight, he didn't want to miss out on it.

"Something like that. I'm going to be moving in with someone." He had never actually asked his dad what he thought of people who weren't straight. Most of the time it just hadn't crossed his own mind. He'd kind of assumed one day that he would marry a girl. Maybe it would be Mai, they did get along pretty well. Though he hadn't heard from her in a while, to be honest. But even if it wasn't, he'd usually thought he would find some girl he'd get along well enough with to marry.

Now he couldn't be that sure anymore. It wasn't that he loved Kaiba, the bastard, more than anything. It was just that spending time around him had made him think about other things he could do with his life instead of marrying a girl and having a family and one of those button down jobs that kind of made him want to run screaming into the night.

"That blonde with the great stack?" His dad grinned even more, a sort of gleam to his eyes that Jounouchi didn't like all that much. "About time you got some, boy. Was starting to think you might've been a bit on the _weird_ side."

Jounouchi winced. He couldn't help himself. He could just let it lie and let his dad think that. In fact, that was probably the smartest thing to do. His dad had his cell phone number, which wouldn't tell him _where_ he was going. He could always make up excuses if dad called and wanted to talk to Mai.

"Keep up with the rent and the bills," he said after a moment, zipping his second bag. "I'm not gonna be around to keep after you about it." He'd had to do that a few times. If it weren't for some of the smaller tournaments he'd won, they probably would have been thrown out more than once. He didn't want to come around for a visit and find some strangers living here.

"It is Kujaku, right?" His dad didn't move out of the way as he started over to him. "Not that little kid with the games, right?" Hiroshi had never quite warmed to Yuugi. Not that Yuugi had come over enough to let him, and Jounouchi didn't blame him a bit. He didn't want Yuugi over there in case his dad got mad. He especially hadn't wanted him over there when Atem had been around. His dad would have been flunking a penalty game in nothing flat.

"No, it's not Yuugi." The game shop didn't even have enough room for him to live in, even if he'd wanted to. Spend the night he had, more than once, but to actually live? No, he couldn't.

His dad came a bit closer, slightly bloodshot eyes narrowed. "You'd better not be lying to me, boy."

"I'm not." Jounouchi tossed both of his bags over his shoulders and started to move around him. "I'm gone. My ride's waiting. Can't keep him waiting." Oh. Shit. Had he actually just said that? Maybe his dad wouldn't notice.

For a moment, it did indeed look as if the older man _hadn't_ noticed. Then, a very familiar cool voice spoke from the far side of the living room door. "Jounouchi. Are you done yet?" There was just the slightest trace of impatience there.

"I'm coming." Jounouchi didn't raise his voice too much. He didn't need to; the walls were thin enough for the other to hear him. He might as well get going.

When he opened the door and Kaiba still stood there, his dad cleared his throat. "You moving in with _him_?" There was a certain trace of disbelief in his tone, and Jounouchi winced once more to himself as he glanced over his shoulder for a moment. There was no way to get away from it now.

"Yeah." And the sooner he was out of here, the better. He didn't want to find out his dad was _that_ homophobic the hard way.

He could hear his dad coming closer as he slid out of the doorway past Kaiba. He looked back again; his dad was staring up at Kaiba, who looked back at him with a cool, reserved look.

"Seen you on TV. You're that rich kid, right?" He didn't even wait for Kaiba to answer with the mild nod the other reserved for those he felt didn't deserve to be spoken to. "So, if you're that loaded, and you want my boy, I think I deserve a little compensation. Just a little loan. You won't even miss it, rich boy."

Jounouchi wished that he hadn't let Kaiba bring him over here right now. He could've just gotten out and not be listening to this. His dad was asking Kaiba Seto for a _loan_! And because of _him_! This was just not right.

"And how much would you say would be a 'little' loan?" Kaiba's voice had a slight tinge of amusement now. Jounouchi kept going, but the words were still as clear as if he were standing right there.

"Just a few hundred thousand yen, that's all. Maybe a million if you want to be generous." Jounouchi Hiroshi would probably have gambled all of that away inside of a week or less if he had it. His son knew that quite well.

There was silence, as Jounouchi waited for the elevator to get back to their floor. Why _hadn't_ he come by himself? But he had to deal with that. At least his dad wasn't acting like a jerk and pretending he was going to keep him there no matter what.

"I don't think so." Then Kaiba's firm steps sounded, leading away from the door and down the hallway to where Jounouchi himself was waiting. Several words of profanity were being hurled down towards them, but neither paid that much attention.

"Can't believe he said that," Jounouchi muttered to himself as they entered the elevator. In some ways he could, though. His dad had embarrassed him more than once, after all.

Kaiba chuckled briefly, a very unusual sound. "He didn't price you highly enough. If he'd suggested five or six million yen, I might have considered it."

Jounouchi glared over at him sharply. "You're a bastard, you know that, right?"

He didn't bother to listen for an answer. The first rule of dating Kaiba Seto _was_ that he was a bastard.

And the second was, he guessed, not to tell one's deadbeat dad that you were dating Kaiba Seto in the first place. So he didn't ask for any loans.

**The End**

**Notes:** Frankly, I wrote this not just for the challenge, but because I've seen way too many "omg, Jounouchi's dad beats him bloody for daring to be gay/date Kaiba!" So I wanted to write something different.

Also, just so you know, Hiroshi has three meanings in Japanese. I chose the name on purpose for Jounouchi's dad. The three meanings are: tolerate, generous, prosperious. If Japanese people had middle names, I'm sure his would be "irony".


End file.
